How to Make Wordpress your Main Domain - Made Easy

Joanne Marcinek is a woman with a mission. Her passion is to help people get the relevant information they need on the Internet.

Using Wordpress as Your Main Website

I think one of the most powerful applications of the Wordpress platform is as a fully functioning Content Management System for non-technie website owners to have both static webpages and a blog that can be easily updated from any web browser.

When installing Wordpress to use as your website (this assumes you have purchased a domain name and are using your own hosting account rather than a free site at wordpress.com) the basic installation creates a directory in your hosting account's default directory called /wordpress/ with all the required files.

But, you would like to have your web address be simply: www.yourdomainname.com instead of www.yourdomainname.com/wordpress

This Hub will explain how to do that.

Make Wordpress your Main Domain - Update Settings

From your Wordpress Dashboard, go to Settings > General and in the middle of the screen you will see a section where you can change the URL that displays for your website.

Leave the setting for Wordpress URL alone (unless you have moved the files from their original installation location). In the site address field, put your domain name with no extra directory settings, just the www.yourdomainname.com.

Make Wordpress your Main Domain - Copy Files to Root Directory

The next two important steps involve copying 2 files from the /wordpress directory to your site's root directory and making a change to one line of the code in the index.php file. You can make these changes using any text editor and copying the files can be done via your site's control panel or by a web publishing program like Dreamweaver.

First, copy (don't move) both the index.php file and the .htaccess file from the Wordpress directory to your site's root directory.

Update the Index.php file

The next step is to change just one line in the index.php file. Open the file in a text editor and look for the line that reads:

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AUTHOR

AskJoanne

5 years agofrom USA

Sorry for the long delay in replying... I like Wordpress because the ease of making a good looking site. I have only ever used one other CMS/web-builder and not any of the ones you've mentioned. I also like that there are so many fantastic plug-ins for WordPress (for SEO, social, etc.).

Billie Kelpin

5 years agofrom Newport Beach

Joanne, What are the advantages of having Wordpress as your website over using a site builder like web.com or network solutions or any of the other sitebuilders. I've had a website for about 20 years with web.com and all of the companies that were before web.com, but am using their old tellix builder which doesn't have cool features. So I purchased another account to point to the old account, so at least some of my pages look modernized. (The old site simply has too much on it and can't be copied.) ANYWAY, now I'm thinking I might just use wordpress to build a new website and point to the old through picture links. Is their an advantage, BESIDES COST, of using Wordpress over the site builders in web.com, ipage, network solutions, etc. etc. The one advantage that I see is more creatively attractive templates. Are their other advantages? (That could be a whole new hub, huh?) I have a friend who is selling a book nationwide and got himself in Barnes and Noble, doing signings and everything. He buildt everything with Wordpress. I'm really leaning toward this, but wonder if that's the right direction for me. THANKS!

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